The present invention relates to a remote control utility meter reading system.
In a utility meter reading system to which the present invention is an improvement, remote terminals are connected to various utility meters such as gas, electric meters and the like. A central terminal interrogates the remote terminals periodically over a telephone or leased line to read the meters. The system is especially advantageous in large apartment buildings and other areas in which there is a large concentration of utility meters.
It is desirable to have a single remote terminal connected to not just one type of utility meter but several types. For example, a single remote terminal may be connected to receive the readings of gas, electric and water meters in an apartment building. The problem arises, however, of how the central terminal is to distinguish between the readings of the different meters. It is also necessary to provide user identification codes and the like to enable proper accounting.
In prior art systems of this type, the remote terminals are provided with counters to count the number of units of the particular utility used and also with a code generating apparatus to generate a code indicating the address of the remote terminal, user identification numbers, the type of utility represented by each counter and the like. These prior art systems suffer from the drawback, however, that the code generating apparatus is expensive to manufacture and must be replaced along with the counters when there is a change in the user or utility.
It is therefore an important object of the present invention to provide a utility meter reading system comprising remote terminals which can be used to measure the use of any utility.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a utility meter reading system in which remote terminals do not require code generating apparatus.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a utility meter reading system in which digits of counters which are not used to represent meter readings are used to represent codes.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become clear from the following detailed description taken with the accompanying drawings.